Working From Home is easy Right!

You've decided that you think working from home would make you life easy, well you'd think so but you would be wrong. You would be amazed at the number of people who think that because you work from home you don't really work. You'll have the friend who stops by unannouced for coffeedbecause they're on leave for a day/week. The neighbour who doesn't understand why something hasn't been done that they spoke to you about urgently this morning. The friend who asks you to go on a shoppingspree with them, and then gets upset when you explain you can't as you're working. And lastly what about the partner who asks you to do something, and rings back 5 minutes later to check if it's been done.

These are just some of the external challenges you'll face if you want to work from hom. If you can be strict and set guidelines for friends and family and not let them disturb you when you're working then working from home can be wonderful. However, having gotten past those hurdles we come to the one hurdle that will sink any work at home career faster than all of the above put together. How good is your willpower. If you are easily distracted if you're at home by yourself or if there are other people about then working from home might not be for you.

A case in point, someone I worked with a while ago was "committed" to working from home and making some money. She however had no concept of self discipline for working at home. Now I'll grant you she had a young child, but there was also a full time nanny to help look after the child and keep an eye on the house. Her work would often miss deadlines and when queried upon why her standard answer was "I needed to do something" for the child. Breaking point for me was the day at 8:30 in the morning she told me she was just going off to pay a bill, at 6:0o that night when asked about the file her answer was "Well I was out with my husband until 5:30, then we got home and it was time to make supper, then her son needed to be bathed, and put to bed before she could start on it". Needless to say that the working relationship didn't last much longer, unfortunately, she took it personally and the personal friendship suffered a bit as well.

While this is an extreme case, if you have the willpower and committmentto work from home then you will find you don't get yourself into such situations. But it is certainly worth consideringbefore decidingwhether working at home is for you or not.

A couple of good ideas if you want to work from home:

1. Set rules about your workings hours. Yes they can be flexible but you do need to have some idea. It's also good for if you have clients to remind them of your hours so that you can actually have some family time.
2. Think about getting dressed in the morning before starting work. I don't mean getting dressed in office clothes but at least get up and get out of your PJ's, it's amazing what an effect that it will have on your mind set.
3. Don't run errands as they occur but rather try and keep them so that you can run them all together and save you time in the long run.